Englewood v Hyde Park



Hyde Park

Englewood

Englewood and Hyde Park, to Chicagoans these two towns are synonymous with two very different types of atmospheres. Englewood is a town situated in the Southwest side of Chicago with an approximate population of 30 thousand. It is bordered by 75^th Street on the south, Garfield Boulevard to the north, Racine Avenue on the west, and State Street to the east. Its high school was shut down in 2008 due to poor performance. Hyde Park on the other hand is a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, but located on the coast of Lake Michigan. Hyde Park’s official borders are Hyde Park Boulevard (51^st) to the north, Washington Park to the west, Lake Michigan on the east, and The Midway between 58^th and 60^th street to the south. Hyde Park is the home place of the University Of Chicago. This generic geographical information starts to reveal differences within these towns; ones bordered by a park and lake, the other streets. The other differences in social organization we see from the pictures featured above are from what Sampson indicates as stigmas or opinions that form when associations between a familiar attribute of a person and issue of the communities order can be made.

               Sampson identifies our perceptions as primarily being influenced through an implicit bias and Laissez-faire racism. When looking at the above pictures we have already subconsciously made determinations about these areas and the people whom live there. On the one hand you have Hyde Park, a neighborhood of newly constructed apartment buildings with trees, neighbors walking the street, and gated entrances with a small grass lawn. The other picture features Englewood. Overgrown grass in the sidewalk, boarded up buildings, run down housing, and graffiti grab attention. Yet the idea of the implicit bias is that we’ve made further distinctions about these neighborhoods and people. In the “nice” neighborhood we see white people walking around and less social disorganization. In Englewood, a black male is walking next to a broken down building on a “disorganized” street. The implicit bias suggests consciously we do not relate blacks with disorganization and whites with organization, yet subconsciously we do so. We actively reject the stereotype of black and white, but we subconsciously are justifying it. Iimplicit bias does not mean that people are hiding their racial prejudices, literally they do not realize they have them. I mean everyone in each of these neighborhoods has equal chances to excel in school, receive a high paying job, and move up in class status right?

               Laissez-Faire racism is also attributed to this idea of social disorganization within urban communities. Basically laissez-faire racism is tied to the idea of color blindness. This is the idea that minorities are to blame for their worse economic conditions, not structural bias or outside influence. Eduardo Bonilla Silva whom was brought up at the end of class this week, has explained that people with power construct this ideology to justify current social inequalities. The little that is shown from the pictures above show different age groups, different social environments, different access to housing. Laissez faire racism would reject all of these things influence and explain that minorities within Englewood are there because they chose to be, they have let the neighborhood fall apart because they chose to. But to argue this, Hyde Park was also in disarray until gentrification took place in the late 20^th century. It was the social reconstruction of the area that raised housing prices and displace minorities in the area. This change was not self-chosen by those that live there, but put forth through documents driven by city leaders with economic interests. Outside forces decided that this construction for the town would be best. The fact that it affected mainly minorities within the area would be disregarded by laissez-faire racism.

               To sum up the thought on this week’s readings, social disorganization within an area as characterized in the broken windows theory has largely become a part of racial inequality and debate. Sampson indicates that the disorganization in urban areas leads to and comes from laissez faire racism and an implicit bias based on racial lines. Areas in which you can see this are not limited to the Chicago, let alone cities. The way these neighborhoods have been classified as socially disorganized and the method in which people think of them has been socially mediated through bias and racism built into the social structures surrounding us. In Conclusion, these views of disorganization of minorities, primarily black minorities do not stem solely from whites, but minorities including blacks as well. These socially structured and wrong ideas have been passed down further affecting the already disadvantaged.